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Monday, 30 June 2014

Self Quantification

I have been tracking quantified-self movement since early 2011. I am intrigued by the use of wearable technologies and mobile self-tracking apps among people over the past two years. It’s integration with mobility & social network sites, thereby allowing people to share experiences, build communities and gain peer support is fascinating.

"What I said is NOT what I did?" This insight gap is a powerful revelation. And this is the key for human behavior change.

Major brands across the world are strategically providing consumers with such community environments. India is not far behind, with players like GetActive are engaging in building powerful communities. For an enterprise, it provides opportunities to engage audience in an innovative way, help build collaborative customer relationships and thereby gain competitive edge.

The catalytic network effect arising from quantified self has potential to impact our society at large. Some of the initial use cases are as below:

Digital Business: It has the potential to disrupt the brand experience through products & services innovation & digital marketing.

Internet of Things: Wearable technology & sensors, which are seamlessly connected to cloud & mobility can integrate & automate virtually everything – from home appliances to workplace & factories. It can disrupt the credit card industry through seamless money transactions, which is fraught with frauds.

Research & Design: The information on behavioral sciences, data sciences & social sciences collected seamlessly has the power to shape the user experience, fashion & technology at large.

Today, consumers can use mobile phones, smart watches, adhesive patches, clothing with embedded sensors and a range of other accessories to track their activity levels, heart rate, body temperature, blood sugar, caloric intake, sleep quality and other statistics. The trackers of today beam data to cloud databases, where algorithms deal with massive amounts of data, combing through it in search of patterns and returning advice to consumers.